Little Presents

More little presents:

Shaker Hearts


Dark red Turkish leather and beautiful silky burgundy cord with carved bone beads and red wooden hearts.

Holly

Silver plated chain with an enamel holly leaves pendant, red coral and glass beads.



Dragon


Green Turkish leather cord with glass beads in green and a pewter dragon pendant.


Black Widow


Black Turkish leather cord with plain and carved wooden beads and a pewter spider pendant. Scary! ;-)

Earrings - Snowflakes

Some more stocking fillers for the Christmas Fair:

Snowflake one (all frosty)


Snowflake two (all snowy)

For Penny

Penny wanted to know how my brooches look from the back. Here are two of the brooches (blue and brown from a previous post) but from the back rather than the (lovely) front.

Front

Back

Front

Back

I don't normally use more than two bits of wire to keep the danger of twisted-off wire to a minimum. Rather than twisting the ends I try feeding them back into the beads and only occasionally twist a small section at the end.

For both these brooches I've used coordinating wire (red for the brown brooch, blue for the blue brooch).

Purple Peacock

This I made this afternoon. I had the beads and findings all read but hadn't had time to put it all together. I've used deep purple freshwater pears, candy jade in different sizes and shades (from lavender, to purple, to plum), plum opal glass chips, Amethyst nuggets and chips and deep plum coloured, silver lined seed beads. The beautiful connectors have a purple stone (not sure what it is) set in the middle and lovely engravings. I've also used little stick and 1-3 connectors and silverplated chain.

The glass chips have an opal effect so seem much more red in the photo than in real life. When the necklace was finished it reminded me of the way a purples tail unfolds with the beautiful purple connectors making the "eyes" of the tail.

Here's a close-up:

Heroine - Cleopatra

I recently went to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and looked (of course) at the jewellery in their Roman/Greek/Egyptian sections. I was surprised how little jewellery has changed since people started wearing it. One thing I really liked was the colours in the Egyptian jewellery. There were lovely deep teal blues (often Lapislazuli or - I believe - Turquoise). The old Egyptians also had a thing about deep, dark reds (I believe Carnelian) and bone/stone colours, all mixed up. I decided to make a necklace that has a similar feel but is more modern. Below is my Cleopatra necklace.

I have used lots of beads including the lovely Chinese Teal beads I've used in one of the Flapper necklaces, deep dark red (much darker than on the picture) glass beads (plain round, faceted, daggers, coin, large and small), topaz golden beads, glass chips, Turquoise, Myuki cubes, Swarovski beads and Magatama drops, all strung on silver plated findings and a memory wire that (compared to deep colours of the beads) is almost invisible. I've gone for the memory wire because I wanted the beads to lie flat.

And here are the matching earrings:

Rings within Rings

This is one I made for myself. I bought a broken vintage necklace (the flat rings) and wanted to give it a new lease of life:

The necklace looks stunning when worn, a shimmery, shiny, silver waterfall cascading down the neckline. I love the simplicity of it with the different sized and textured rings and the little silver discs. Works for me.

Here's the matching bracelet:



And the matching earrings:

Peridot Hearts

I looked through one of the latest fashion magazines and realised hearts are in! So I sat down to design my own little heart necklace and, even if I say so myself, this is much prettier than the one in the magazine.

Lovely heart silver plated heart connectors with peridot, green freshwater pearls and lemonstone hearts. Well, the Winter solstice is not far away and that means Spring is coming! :-)

Rings

More stocking fillers: Beautiful rings in the colours of the rainbow. :-)


Below are a few close-ups of the rings:


The silver ring is made with vintage beads and modern Swarovski beads. It sparkles like real diamonds.
The green ring is made with a real green jade bead, green and pale Jade Magatama drops and vintage seed beads.
The black ring is made with two different types of black Magatama drop beads and a few beautifully sparkly Czech faceted beads in jet black and black diamond.

The red ring is made with a wonderful raspberry pink vintage bead and more Magatama drops in two different red shades.

Here are the charm rings I made in Summer. A few are still left.

Brooches and Pins

I've had so much fun fixing Liz's brooch, I thought I'd make some more.

Green Brooch:

The brooch is made on a kilt-pin entirely with semi-precious beads and a few vintage seed beads. There is green and pale white jade, several different types of turquoise, dark green goldstone, aventurine, and green agate and of course, a lovely lemonstone heart. This brooch is absolutely gorgeous and special.

The following brooches are made on normal brooch pins:

Copper and Brown Brooch

This brooch is also made from semi-precious beads with a few seed beads in copper lined silver to add texture: amber, brown goldstone, garnet, carnelian and red jade. Lovely deep colours which will go perfectly with this season's fashion.

Blue Brooch

Icy blues mixed with deeper blues. The beads are all glass, but the great variety of beads gives this brooch great texture and a lovely lightness.

White Star Brooch
This brooch is also made mainly with gemstones except for some plain white seed beads for texture. I've also added a little silver star charm for extra interest. I've used everything pale - mother of pearl (the big star and beads), moonstone, white jade, rose quartz and pale lavender lace agate.

And then I made some with hat pins. These are perfect for scarves and cardigans and coats:

Raspberry Brooch
For this I've used a quite long hat pin (around 12cm) with a protector at the end. The stars in this brooch are the raspberry vintage beads. I love those. They are so shimmery and yummy. I've added faceted and lustred and other beads in different shades of red and bead caps and spacers. This is one of my all-time favourites.


Plum BroochThis was made with a hat pin, too. Lovely scrumptious beads in purples and lilacs with different textures, faceted, lustred (or both) or plain, this is just so stylish!

Velvety Heart for Cats

I am going to have a stall next Saturday at our local school so I decided to make some stocking fillers and necklaces for little ones (and not so little ones).

There are three necklaces with different Chinese porcelain cat pendants. They are so cute and just perfect to be hung on a necklace with some velvety suede and ribbon:

White Cat

I've used deep pink suede and a lovely white satin ribbon with cut out little flowers:


Red Cat

For the red cat I used bright red suede and velvet:


Pink Cat

For the pink cat I used pale pink suede and a pink satin ribbon:


For the not so little ones there's the

Velvet Heart

This is the most gorgeous blue heart with silver and green flecks inside. I've hung it from deep blue suede and royal blue velvet ribbon. The ribbon can be worn like the choker with the heart hanging further down.


and the

Red Pendant

A very simple necklace that looks lovely when worn because the red and green contrast in the pendant works so well: